State of the Union Triggers National Salmon Craving

Out of everything President Obama said in last night's State of the Union address, the one thing people remembered the most was his salmon joke:

The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater. I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked.

Pretty wonky joke there, Mr. President! I know I laughed, food politics dork that I am. But apparently the random mention of the omega-rich, orange-hued fish sent light bulbs flashing in hungry minds all over America. It was, after all, nearly the only mention of food in the entire speech.

I was on Twitter with about 2,000 of my friends when people suddenly started chattering about how much they were craving lox. We weren't the only ones. NPR asked listeners to tell them what they heard in the speech and then Wordle created word clouds. Guess which word came out the largest?

In fact, even when NPR created Wordle images using responses from only Democrats and then the responses from only Republicans, salmon was still the most prominent word. Hey, at least we can all agree on something, right?

So there you have it. The "takeaway" from President Obama's SOTU speech? Salmon -- literally. I'll take mine poached with ginger, please! The state of our union is smoked and piled up on a bagel. Maybe you think it's a little fishy, but hey, it's hard for a President to swim upstream. Know what I mean, cream cheese?